6 Essential Freelancer Interview Questions

Transcription

1 6 Essential Freelancer Interview Questions

2 Don t Miss a Beat On Your Next Interview Do you ever wonder what questions you should be asking when talking to workers for the first time through FreeeUp? We wondered the same exact thing as we first started hiring freelancers for our business many years ago. This guide is to help you find the right worker for each project or set of tasks that you need completed through the FreeeUp Marketplace. The questions stem from our 5+ years of experience interviewing and hiring hundreds of freelancers from all over the world. If you can learn to ask the right questions upfront, you can ensure that your hiring success percentage will be as high as humanly possible. Think About Your Needs Save time by keeping interviews short with these basic questions to quickly determine the reliability and competence of your candidate, as well as whether they re suited to the project you re posting. As your potential worker answers, be constantly thinking about your needs and the needs of your company. How well does the potential candidate match up? Question #1: Ask the freelancer candidates to rate their skill sets. Is your worker going to be working with spreadsheets? Ask them to rate their Excel skills on a scale from Ask them to explain and justify the score they gave themselves. The aim is to get specific information to justify their score to you. Ask follow up questions as it makes sense to learn more about their specific skill sets. If they claim to have multiple skill sets, ask them to rate each one so you have an understanding of how they can best help your business. Question #2: Ask the freelancer if they can make the commitment you need. Be upfront and honest about the desired hours to avoid any type of confusion. Most remote workers are used to flexi-time, so you need to give them the exact hours you need, and then get their confirmation if they can realistically stick to that schedule and uphold the hours over the period of time that you need them with your company. Once you are confident that the worker has the time to dedicate to your task or project, ask about other client time commitments the worker might have. This will give you a good idea of what they will

3 be able to dedicate to you on a daily or weekly basis. It will also allow you to see if they are overworking themselves. What are their time commitments to the other clients? How much work do they do for them each week? Without prying too much into their personal life, you want as complete a picture as you can get of their entire schedule. If a worker states they are already working 40 hours for their 4 other clients, that may be a red flag that they won t have quality time for your task even if they say that they do. Be careful and make sure to get the full story before moving onto the next question. Question #3: Ask the freelancer about qualities that you value. What kind of character and personality do you want the people you work with to have? Are you looking for someone efficient and dedicated? Or are you more interested in someone who is warm and friendly? Is honesty, attention to detail, or flexibility to work on weekends vitally important? Make a list of these qualities in order of importance and ask your candidates straight up if they have these qualities. Ask them to explain their answers as well so you have a deeper look into who they are. To make sure they are not simply saying yes to every question, throw in a few questions about qualities you aren t looking for as well. At the end of the day, you want to hire freelancers that align with your personal and company values. If the freelancer has the skills and the attitude that matches with who you are as business owner, there is a must greater chance that the relationship will work out. Question #4: Ask the freelancer about your pet peeves. You may be working closely with the freelancer on a regular basis so you should know if your candidate is going to push your buttons. If they frequently engage in all of your least-favorite business habits, it could affect productivity and strain the relationship. Try not to sound accusatory or combative as you ask the questions, just say: How do you feel about [late night s, extending deadlines, shift changes]? and then go from there. Similar to the first 3 questions, look for red flags and don t settle for a freelancer that doesn t meet your ideal candidate. Question #5: Ask the freelancer about their Internet connection and other hardware. Often overlooked, this question is extremely important when dealing with workers from outside of the United States. You cannot assume that every freelancer s Internet or laptop is as good as yours, or even that they have a stable power supply. You need to ask them directly about their connectivity.

4 To make their answers even more helpful for you to make a decision, you should know what speeds are needed to complete the tasks that you need done in an efficient manner. You can also ask the worker for an estimation and listen closely for signs of whether they are confident or doubtful on providing those estimates. The main point here is to set a clear expectation for the future on task management, and also communication, since you will be working with them exclusively online. Be thorough and specific as you quiz them. What kind of internet do they use - Fiber, DSL, broadband, Wi-Fi, mobile data? What kind of computer (brand, model, specs) do they use? Do they have frequent power outages in their area? What backup options do they have in place, in case of a connection loss? Getting the answers to these questions will help you to avoid situations where a worker can t handle their task due to an impromptu power outage in their area. No one wants that to happen! Question #6: Ask the freelancer what types of communication they re most comfortable with. If you like to send hourly s, and your worker usually checks their inbox only once a day, that s something you may need to ask them to accommodate to. Review each type of communication you ll use with your worker Skype, text, phone calls, video chats and confirm that they are comfortable and able to communicate the way you do. Communication is the MOST important aspect of the relationship that you have with the freelancers that you hire and you MUST cover it before hiring. Create a guide of how you prefer to communicate, share it with the worker as you are interviewing, and make sure that they are on board with your communication strategies. Don t Settle Until You Find the Perfect Match Beyond the direct responses your candidates provide, pay attention to how they respond. What is their general attitude towards work? How professional are they? Do you get along with them quickly? How quickly do they respond to the chats as you are communicating with them? When you re looking for that perfect match, you should never feel like you have to settle. Time is of the essence, but it is a wise investment to choose your hires with long-term goals for your company in mind, even if the position you are hiring for isn t necessarily a long-term one. You want to find someone who is committed, competent, and reliable, and these questions will help you do just that.

5 Tap Into the FreeeUp Marketplace to Practice Your Interviewing The beautiful aspect of FreeeUp is that any freelancer you are introduced to will have already been interviewed and tested by the FreeeUp internal team. The workers you are introduced to are the top 1% of all freelancers that applied to join the marketplace. If you re ready to test out these interview questions, head over to FreeeUp.com, click Sign Up, create your FREE account, and submit your first Worker Request ticket. You ll be introduced to a worker within 24 hours and can start asking these questions in your search for the perfect freelancer! In the case that you ever have any issues, reach out to the FreeeUp Marketplace team and we ll point you in the right direction :)